


Every Day, Patrick Doesn't Break Up With Him

by CartWrite



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst, David Has Issues, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, So does Patrick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 03:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17675546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CartWrite/pseuds/CartWrite
Summary: David is dating Patrick, but there's no way Patrick is going to stay with him. He's going to break up with him. ...Any day now.Should be canon compliant up to the current episode (S5E4 'The Dress') but starts at the beginning of season 4 right after David and Patrick first start dating.





	Every Day, Patrick Doesn't Break Up With Him

1.

Every day, David knows Patrick is going to break up with him.

“This has got to stop,” Patrick announces from behind the register.

David isn’t going to make a scene. He turns on his heel to face the firing squad. “Okay,” he says to Patrick.

Patrick’s shirtsleeves are shoved up toward his elbows.

Not great for the fabric, but his off the rack cotton-poly blends can take it, and David loves his arms.

“We’ve been invoiced for the jute bags three times.” Patrick picks up a pen just to toss it back down. “This is no way to do business. We’ve paid them. And it’s not that the bags aren’t great—”

“They’ve got that rustic-clean feeling,” David says, because it’s the first thing he thinks of that isn’t _just give me one more chance._

“Yeah, but at what point are you poorly organized, and at what point are you trying to double dip?”

“We can get a new supplier. Different bags. Better bags.”

Patrick flashes David that small, private smile he seems to reserve for moments just between them. “I do like the bags. But if it’s all right with you, I am going to send a strongly-worded email.”

“Do your worst,” David says.

2.

David puts on his rings. He doesn’t always wear them, but he does more often these days because Patrick is like a bizarre raccoon person. He picks up David’s hands, holds them, and plays with the rings, spinning them, arbitrarily moving them from one finger to another with a grin as if this is a torment.

“You do know Patrick is already dating you, right? You don’t need to spend three hours longer than usual in the mirror,” Alexis tells him.

“Choke on a bobby pin,” David says. He checks his hair one last time and grabs his jacket. His cell rings. It’s Patrick.

_“Hey, David. I’m really sorry.”_

Okay, sure, fine. Over a call. It’s fine. They haven’t been dating long. David hears the tinny noise a broken speaker makes echo in his ears.

 _“I know I was the one who wanted to go see live music. And I got you all hyped up, but…”_ Patrick blows out a breath.

A difference of interests, then. David loves music, but his tastes mostly run to the great pop divas of yesteryear and, sometimes, The Cure. He’d agreed to go hear the Elm Valley Roustabouts or whatever their name was because Patrick had asked so nicely, and promised him drinks, and David had been trying to be a more giving person, so. “But?”

_“Yeah. There was some kind of snafu and—”_

David prepares himself for the break up. Tonight, he might even receive it gracefully.

_“Okay. I forgot. I forgot to buy tickets and now they’re all sold out and—geez, David, I’m sorry. I know this is last minute. Could I maybe take you to dinner instead?_

Relief washes over him. “Well. I was really looking forward to the—” Roundabouts? “Show. But it’s not like there won’t be another chance to see them.”

_“Actually, they’re disbanding. Tonight is their very last performance.”_

David grimaces. “Oh.”

_“Yeah, no, I’m kidding. They’re always playing somewhere. There’ll be like seventeen more chances this year.”_

David can hear his grin. “Uh. Just for that emotional rollercoaster, you are taking me out somewhere nice tonight. And I mean nice. None of this raisins in the drinks—kind of situation.”

_“Sounds fair. I’ll pick you up in ten?”_

“Mm. I’ll be out front.” He hangs up.

Alexis chimes in. “You’re so gross when you’re all happy.”

3.

The only reason Patrick is with him, David knows, is because he doesn’t know what else is out there.

Patrick doesn’t know that other guys are the kind to remember a one-month anniversary, and those guys come with rugged utility shirts, muscles hewn from hard physical jobs, and trucks. Or at least cars not shared with a demanding family. They’re the kinds of guys Patrick will date when he’s done with David. And it’s only a matter of time until he gets a clue; Patrick is new to being with a man, but he’s not dumb.

David stares at the black screen of the motel’s switched-off television. “I mean, he’s going to break up with me. He’s going to.”

Alexis flicks a page in her magazine. “So break up with him, David.”

He sits up on the bed. “What, are you crazy?”

“No, I’m just sick of you whining about your doomed relationship. Either enjoy it or break it off yourself.”

After a restless night of thinking, David decides she’s right, though he will never tell her that. He’s not breaking up with Patrick, of course. He’s just going to resolve to enjoy every day—until.

He brings Patrick tea, accepts coffee from Patrick. He finds reasons to touch Patrick during the workday, and loves making him blush by surprising him with kisses in the stock room.

David’s heart still skips a beat anytime Patrick looks too distressed or thoughtful. _Now? Today?_ he wonders.

But Patrick doesn’t break up with him.

4.

Patrick is nervous, and meeting Stevie and Jake in Stevie’s apartment doesn’t help. When David touches his lower back, it’s tight with tension.

 _Please not now,_ David thinks, and as if on cue, Patrick bounds up off the borrowed bed and paces the length of the bedroom.

“I’m sorry, David,” Patrick says.

David bites his lip, nods. He’s not going to cry. Not until later.

“I—I, uh.” Patrick crosses his arms. “I thought I was ready, and now I’ve got Stevie and Jake in my head and I don’t—it’s not that Stevie's place isn't clean.” But his nose wrinkles.

Patrick isn’t fussy, David knows, but he is neater than most. “It’s fine,” he manages. He’s screwed this up; he knows it.

“No. No, it’s not.”

 _Just do it,_ David thinks. He can’t bear this much longer.  

“You’ve been waiting so long.” Patrick comes to rest leaning against Stevie’s nightstand. He lowers his arms and looks down at his hands. “Longer than I have any right to make you wait.”

Ah. The old ‘I will selflessly allow you to break up with me’ maneuver. David knows this script, knows his lines by heart. But he doesn’t want to say them. “I don’t care.”

Patrick risks a glance. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do,” David says. “I don’t care. You need more time, take your time.” But. Doubts pour in. “I mean you do—think—I’m attractive?”

“What? Yes. Of course I do.”

He sounds genuine. “Okay, then.” David nods. “I mean, I do realize my bold embrace of both my masculine and feminine energies can be—not everyone’s cup of tea.” He smooths his hands over a bedspread that probably belonged to Stevie’s dead grandmother. “So.”

“From the moment I met you, I never wanted to stop looking at you,” Patrick says. His voice goes soft. “I love the way you look.”

The confession shores up David’s confidence. He puts the running loop of breakup scenarios in his head on pause and looks at Patrick. He’s nervous and scared, perched against the nightstand like he might take flight.

“I’ve just never done any of this before,” Patrick says, “and I know you have. Oh, God, I have to admit something. I’m sorry.” He hangs his head. “I googled you.”

“You googled me?” What did that mean? What had he found?

“When we first met. I looked you up. And lots of pictures came up.”

“Oh.” David’s heart sank.

“You with a lot of different people.” Patrick’s gaze bores a hole in Stevie’s rug. “A lot of them were very tall and attractive and cool and—how do I compete with that? I’m.” He glances up. “I’m going to disappoint you.”

David doesn’t know where to start with that. “Patrick.”

“Which is part of the reason I’m having trouble—making things happen. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I have this yardstick I can’t measure up to, no idea what I’m doing, and now I’ve waited so long that I’m terrified I’m too frustrating to deal with, and the only reason you haven’t broken up with me is because of the store.” Patrick laughs. It’s bitter. “Because inventory? Accounting? Those I can do.”

David’s chest feels tight. Crazy ideas start buzzing in the back of his brain. That Patrick might not be thinking of breaking up with him at all. That he might be as scared as David is. He finds his voice. “You couldn’t possibly disappoint me.”

Patrick doesn’t move. He does look at David—like he’s trying to make a decision.

He holds out his hand, the one with the rings on it. “You can’t. And we don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

Patrick shakes his head. “No, that’s the—I am. I want to be. I think—I need to stop thinking.” He moves slowly, but it’s only a couple of steps. He takes David’s hand in his. “Kiss me?” he whispers.

David stands up. He pulls Patrick close.

He’s shaking.

David kisses him slowly, softly, and holds him until Patrick urges them both onto the bed.

 

5.

Every day, Patrick keeps on not breaking up with him.

David does try to avoid what Alexis calls ‘dumpable’ behavior. But between David’s family and his own failings, that’s hard sometimes.

One night, he tells Patrick about the other guys with the trucks and the muscles. It’s their eleventh month anniversary. David hadn’t even known Ray Butani did singing telegrams until Patrick had sent him one.

Patrick listens. “David, I think you’ve had a little too much wine.”

“No, but listen,” he says, and pillows his head on Patrick’s stomach as he explains it again.

When he finishes, Patrick says, “David, I can buy a shirt. I can rent a truck. And you did remember this anniversary. You made me pancakes.” He pauses. “You attempted to make me pancakes. Also, I don’t love these other men. I love you.”

“Oh.” It’s very hard to argue with that. David tells him so. “Also, don’t break up with me tomorrow.” He feels Patrick’s fingers comb through his hair.

“I won’t.”

“And don’t break up with me next week, either.”

“All right.”

David presses his face into Patrick’s cotton sold-six-to-a-bag crew neck shirt. “How about—don’t break up with me ever?”

“Deal,” Patrick says.

**Author's Note:**

> I love David and Patrick so much - this is a little different a style than my usual, but it wouldn't get out of my head. 
> 
> I am on tumblr as thecartwrite - feel free to say hello.


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